Sierra Leone ruling APC’s poor governance now under international spotlight

It has become an all too often familiar expectation that whenever Sierra Leone makes the world news, it is for all the wrong reasons, thanks to ten years of the Koroma led All Peoples Congress party leadership, that has transformed what was fast becoming a promising young democracy in West Africa to a banana republic.

Lawlessness, impunity, corruption and the sheer lack of respect for civil liberty and democratic principles, are making it difficult for credible foreign investors to support existing industries and establish new businesses that could help address the country’s more than 70% unemployed adults get into work.

With almost all major public procurement contract decisions and matters of constitutionality and judicial outcomes, decided by president Koroma at State House, through what has become known as ‘orders from above’, good governance has been thrown out of the window.

Elections in Sierra Leone are less than five months away and the people of Sierra Leone are quietly nursing their desire for a change in government.

But president Koroma who has assumed the position of lifelong chairman and leader of the party, is making sure that his ruling All Peoples Congress party stays in power by all means necessary, including rampant electoral malpractice.

Delegates attending the party’s national convention last weekend, were rudely treated to what many say is a classic Machiavellian trick conjured by president Koroma, when he unilateral decided to hand pick the party’s presidential candidate and running mate.

The president wants to hang on to power after leaving office in 2018. He wants to keep control of the running of the country, despite ten years of failed leadership and economic disaster. Hence his decision last week to bypass the democratic will of the hundreds of delegates at the convention, denying them the right to decide on who leads them into the 2018 presidential and general elections.

Yesterday, 20 October 2017, the UK Guardian Newspaper reported on this story, in a featured article titled: ‘President’s iron-fist methods raise fears for future of democracy in Sierra Leone.’ This is what the Guardian says:

A unilateral decision by the president of Sierra Leone to choose his successor as leader of the ruling All People’s Congress has raised fears about the future of democracy in the country.

Civil society organisations, including the government watchdog group Institute for Governance Reform (IGR), have voiced concerns that Ernest Bai Koroma’s failure to allow party members to vote for their new leader echoes the actions of former dictator Siaka Stevens, who on standing down in 1985 ushered Joseph Momoh into office. (Photo: President Koroma’s choice for 2018 elections: left is Mohamed Chernor Bah with the foreign minister Samura Kamara).

The nomination of Samura Kamara, Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, was announced on Sunday, a few hours before Julius Maada Bio – former leader of the military junta that ruled Sierra Leone at the dawn of its 11-year civil war – was chosen to lead the country’s main opposition party, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP).

Both appointments have rekindled memories of past authoritarianism, with some questioning the integrity of what is to be Sierra Leone’s fifth presidential race since the country reclaimed democratic status more than 20 years ago.

“Koroma came to power by promising a new APC, whereas the reality has been a clear reversal back to the old ways of thinking,” said Andrew Lavali, the IGR’s executive director. “At the convention we had delegates that, in reality, had no authority. The decision was ultimately the president’s.”

Having taken office in 2007, Koroma is nearing the end of his second and last five-year term. The ruling party’s constitution allows the president the option to call a delegate election to choose his successor, but Koroma took matters firmly into his own hands.

“In the end, the party is bigger than everyone,” the president told a crowded convention hall in his hometown of Makeni. “People say I am a nice man, that I am a gentleman, and I agree. But do not cross my path after I have made a decision.”

Former junta leader Julius Maada Bio at a campaign rally in Freetown before the 2012 election. Maada Bio, who ran against Koroma in 2012 and vied for the SLPP leadership in 2007, has long been the anticipated opposition candidate, despite claims from opponents within the party that he has used intimidation to secure votes.

He has maintained a strong cult of personality in Sierra Leone’s southern provinces since his military rule, and has even erected signs across the country proclaiming himself Sierra Leone’s “Father of Democracy”.

It was under Maada Bio’s military regime that Kamara was first appointed to government. A long-time supporter of the president, he was installed as governor of Sierra Leone’s central bank in 2007 and promoted to finance minister two years later. When Koroma was re-elected in 2012, Kamara became foreign minister, a role in which he has drawn criticism for his perceived inaction towards the country’s growing human trafficking problem.

Kamara, who has been at the forefront of Koroma’s push to strengthen the country’s economic ties with China, claims to hold a PhD in economics from Bangor University. According to the Welsh institution’s website, however, his 1986 graduate thesis was never accepted.

More than 25 people declared an intention to run under the APC symbol, creating an air of uncertainty around Koroma’s selection. The APC convention was twice postponed, and leaks to local press ahead of the convention suggested Koroma’s preference was at odds with that of certain party members.

Kamara, a largely unknown figure in both the public and political spheres, came as a surprise choice to many supporters of the ruling party. Among the most popular candidates were John Bonoh Sisay, former CEO of the country’s largest rutile mine, and John Fitzgerald Kamara, justice minister and head of the country’s anti-corruption commission. Both ran exuberant and expensive campaigns, whereas Kamara did not publicly campaign for the position until September.

Sierra Leone’s foreign minister, Samura Kamara, was Ernest Bai Koroma’s surprise choice for leadership of the All People’s Congress. “I would like to congratulate Dr Samura Kamara,” Sisay said on Facebook following the announcement. “I assure you that [my supporters] and I will do all within our power to give [him] the utmost support for the betterment of our party and Sierra Leone in general.”

Other camps were more disgruntled, but most voiced support for Koroma’s decision. The president’s supporters encouraged party members to back his judgment regardless of the outcome. Sisay has been haunted by a bribery scandal since August, and Fitzgerald Kamara has long been accused by his opponents of running a corrupt Anti-Corruption commission.

“I never heard of him before but I’ll always stand with the president,” said Abraham Bangura, a supporter from Freetown. “[Samura Kamara] has a clean record, which I like, and we were expecting [Koroma] to give us someone from the north. But it could have easily been someone from somewhere else. We have a problem with tribalism and there should be a kind of balance I think.”

Kamara and Koroma are both of the same tribe and hail from the country’s Bombali district, of which Makeni is the capital. Makeni underwent rapid development over Koroma’s 10-year presidency and now boasts the country’s only 24-hour electricity supply. Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, still suffers from power outages.

“Koroma has been somewhat of a lame duck president,” Lavali said, “and so we see him hiding behind a character that is weaker than him, that is tribal, as opposed to a strong personality that can drive the election himself. That’s why he went for someone less known, so that even after he’s gone he can keep everything about himself. He couldn’t do this with a strong or established personality like John Sisay or Fitzgerald Kamara. This way, Koroma himself is the ticket.”

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After a thorough reading between the lines, I was able to arrive at conclusion that the very reason why Dr. Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella (KKY) decided to breakaway from the SLPP to form a new political party in our country is for the following reasons:
i. He has ever since been a hypocrite and pretending to have the SLPP at heart.

ii. When Dr KKY was asked at one of his presentation ceremonies at Rotherhythe sport centre in London as to whether he will support whoever is nominated as the SLPP flag bearer to win the party to victory, or will he behave as Charles Margai did if he is not selected, his answer was that when we arrived at that river we will know how to cross. This now explains to every sensible person that he had already planned his deceitful action and that he was just waiting for the time.

iii. KKY is a “ME, MINE and MYSELF” person both by characteristic and behaviour and prefers the world to be centred and pointed to him all the time.

KKY must learn to understand that party politics is not a one-man’s business but a group of large majority votes. Democratic politics policy rest on the fact that “Majority carries the vote”. If a total of 100 people vote in an election for two candidates, the candidate that gets 51 of the 100 votes cast will be the winner.

KKY must understand that Sierra Leone is a country of highly educated people and most of them are not even interested in politics but in other services that propels and therefore beneficial for the country. KKY is not the only educated Sierra Leonean that has ever worked for the United Nations.

Respected Sierra Leoneans, let us don’t allow KKY to disrupt and mess our focus that is already on course for our political movement that will stabilise our country.

Enough is enough in Sierra Leone politics. I will be very pleased if there is no intimidation during the election process. The country is barefooted. How can people choose someone who has ruined the country with the help of China. We want a truly democratic country and someone who will stand for the people and not just the few who have drowned it. I cannot bare to stand any further downing of the country both individual and economically.

Sierra Leone has a long way to go for as long… as the people of this beautiful nation continue to vote for the very same Criminals that have drowned the country in debt, destroyed the country to a point of no return. We need fresh faces with a breath of fresh air in this country to bring the change its deserves for the best interest of all Sierra Leoneans.

WITH CORRUPTION EVERYONE PAYS

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